Made Penniless by Madoff, She’s Forced to Scavenge

At Bernie Madoff’s sentencing yesterday, one of the swindler’s victims told the court that, due to Madoff’s depredations, she now scavenges food from trash cans.

As reported in Time, 65-year-old Miriam Siegman “described how she … can’t afford to buy new reading glasses and sometimes rummages through trash cans to eat.”

As reported in the New York Daily News, Siegman — depicted at left, wearing a hat — told the court:

“Madoff took away my ability to provide for myself. I lost everything, I lost my life.”

She said she was in court to represent those hundreds of unsung Madoff victims who lost their pensions and retirement funds: “There’s this notion that all Madoff’s victims were well-to-do,” Siegman said, “but that’s not true.”